Obama 2012: For a Compassionate America

Obama

2012

For a Compassionate America

Jacques P. Ferraris

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© 2012 Jacques P. Ferraris. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 5/07/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5851-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-5849-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012903974

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Contents

Preface

Chapter One    First Term Achievements

Chapter Two    Admitting Past Mistakes

Chapter Three    Religious Conflicts

Chapter Four    What About Mr. Romney

Chapter Five    Holy Cheats

Chapter Six    The Bible And The Sword

Chapter Seven    The ‘Offense’ Budget (And The Famous Domino Effect)

Chapter Eight    Afghanistan

Chapter Nine    Gop Obsessions

Chapter Ten    The Crazy Primary System (A Real ‘Exceptional’ Case Of Madness)

Chapter Eleven    Compromise

Chapter Twelve    The Green Tea Party The Arab Spring And ‘Occupy Wall Street’

Chapter Thirteen    Gop=Obstructionalism

Chapter Fourteen    Exceptionalism And The Libya Revolution

Chapter Fifteen    Showing Respect For Foreign Cultures

Chapter Sixteen    Tell Us, We Can Take It!

Chapter Seventeen    Social Security & The Horrible Tax Code

Chapter Eighteen    Drugs, Jails & Other Failures

Chapter Nineteen    Epa - Environment Protection Agency (Protect It From The New Gop)

Chapter Twenty    Social Capitalism

Chapter Twenty One    Gop Agenda: Bust The Unions

Chapter Twenty Two    So Many Questions-So Few Answers

Chapter Twenty Three    Flash: December 20, We Win, They Lose!

Chapter Twenty Four    Our Biased Media Why So Many Troops Overseas

Chapter Twenty Five    How Swede It Is!

American ‘exceptionalism’

Same as

Hitler’s German ‘exceptionalism’—

AMERICAN ‘EXCEPTIONALISM’ WAS CLEARLY DEFINED IN A DECEMBER 2011 NEWSPAPER: The notion that the U.S., with a divinely inspired system of government, stands apart from and above the other nations of the world.

Our über-patriots are definitely not the first ones to adopt self-worshiping ideas of total superiority. Not at all! The conservative talk-show voices are perfect modern imitators of the all-time title-holder, the undisputed historical master of all deranged superiority complex freaks: Adolf Hitler. He managed to implant the notion on the highly civilized German people that their Aryan master race was ‘exceptional’, meaning superior to all others and had been chosen by God to rule the world. How frightening it is to realize that his prediction almost happened. The whole world should be eternally thankful that Britain did not capitulate in June 1940 and allowed the future British/U.S./Soviet coalition to unite and stop him from achieving his dreadful ambition!

We cannot allow our modern lunatics to repeat such sense of superiority in our country. Since they also proclaim that they worship God, how can they possibly reconcile the two opposite beliefs that He created humanity but decided that one part of his creation would be superior to the rest? One Adolf Hitler almost destroyed the world! We must never allow another one to take over and destroy our country!

Preface

What a marvelous coincidence! I finished writing this book on January 24 2012; the very same day that President Obama issued his inspiring ‘State of the Union’. All Americans who really want to preserve our democracy and make it work must talk to all their friends to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. If you cherish freedom there cannot be another choice. Even if you feel that all the promised changes did not happen, please consider what Obama had to fight against; a corrupt and relentless GOP whose only goal is to defeat our President and continue to serve its masters; Wall Street, the Big Corporations, Big Business and Big Oil.

To prevent the complete take-over of our Congress by the Chamber of Commerce special interests lobbyists, you must all vote in November 2012. Just staying home, feeling OK because you will not vote for the GOP candidate is not enough. It would only help the Republican candidate. The GOP cannot win when a large percentage of Americans vote. That is why they are introducing all sorts of measures that would prevent millions from voting!

If you feel discouraged because all promises did not materialize, remember that they were stopped by the GOP, not by Obama. He needs your vote to insure our victory and only his triumph will prevent Big Business and Wall Street from reversing the gains we have gained since FDR in 1933. If you do not want to return our country and its people to the Bush catastrophic 8 years, you must help re-elect Barrack Obama. If your pastors ask you to vote Republicans, remind them that they are not supposed to interfere in politics and that the way you vote is nobody’s business!

Let us all duplicate our 2008 fervor when we defeated the Republican Wall Street money machine. Let us all do it again together; the seniors and retired people, the African-Americans, the young people, the women and the Latinos. Let us all rush to the polls. If you do not want Big Business and Wall Street to abuse you even more, you must do your part and vote for Barack Obama in November 2012.

Staying home is not an option; it could mean giving the Tea Party/GOP the victory! Please tell your friends to pass the word to everybody to vote in 2012 and save our country from a complete surrender to the top 1%!

Remember that the right-leaning Supreme Court just opened the flood gates that allow Corporations to inundate the air waves with millions of dollars in support of the Republican candidates, without having to disclose anything!

E X C E P T I O N A L I S M

‘EXCEPTIONALIST’ ALL-TIME GRAND WINNER’

ADOLF HITLER

He declared that the German/Aryan race was superior to all others; that God has chosen it to conquer and rule the world under the Nazi banner. Past champions: Russian: Joseph Stalin, Germans: Goering, Goebels, Himmler.

Spaniards: Francisco Franco and the supporting Spanish Catholic clergy. Italians: Benito Mussolini, Croatian: Ante Pavelich, the Ustacha and the Catholic supporting High clergy. South African: All the Apartheid politicians, Libyan: Mohamar Ghadafi (posthumously).

Notable American winners- General McArthur, General George Patton, Senator Joseph McCarthy, ‘Flush’ Limbaugh, (Flush: because his words should be flushed down the toilet bowl) - the whole TEA PARTY, Sean Hannity (rhymes with insanity), Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney and the whole FOX news department!

Chapter One

First Term Achievements

I know that many Democrats are frustrated and feel that, so far, Obama has not kept several of his 2008 promises to bring a real change to our country and some of them feel that the ‘Yes we can’ may look more like the ‘No we didn’t’.

First of all, that is not true at all but the GOP propagandists have been effectively making fun of Obama’s unfulfilled promises. They shrewdly omitted telling you that it was the GOP obstructions that prevented them to be enacted!

You may feel discouraged because it has been so hard for Obama to do much, especially after the mid-term shellacking. Please do not forget that it would not have happened if so many disgruntled voters had not boycotted the 2010 election which resulted in the dangerous GOP mid-term victory. Even if you feel disappointed, if you really want to preserve what is left of our current democracy, be sure not to repeat the 2010 apathy in 2012. This time, go to the polls and vote and give Obama a real chance to work for America and the people!

To set the record straight, in spite of the quasi impossibility to do anything in Washington, our President, during his first 2 years, succeeded in having many regulations passed that will beneficially impact the lives of millions of Americans. He did it in spite of constant partisan obstructions by the GOP, its wealthy sponsors (Wall Street and the Big Corporations) and the lukewarm attitude of many ‘Blue Dawg’ Democrats.

Those who feel that Obama did not deliver on all his promises should remember the insane super majority 60 rule in the Senate that makes it practically impossible to pass any legislation that does not satisfy the lobbyists and their wealthy masters. After the 2008 election, the GOP had 41 Senators, the Democrats 59. Even if all Democrats had voted yes on Obama’s proposals, he would still have been short that one huge Senate vote. Under the crazy super majority rule, that one vote is unhappily all it takes to stop everything. To make matters worse, some of the so-called ‘Blue Dawg’ Democrats often lined up with the Republicans, afraid to antagonize the conservative-evangelical crowd in their districts.

This super majority deal is just one of the many totally undemocratic rules in Washington. It should have no place in a democracy and it makes a mockery of it. It makes it possible for the Senate minority to stop any vote that Big Business, Wall Street and the Big Banks consider an obstacle to their license to abuse the public. It forces the Senate majority leader, after consulting with the President, to agree to water down the proposed bill or accept that nothing will be passed. How and why did Americans ever accept the idea of the super-majority rule? Well, the truth is simple; they were never asked about it! I do not know how such monstrosity ever became the rule but it is easy to see why; because of the sordid special interests that found a way to influence enough members to pass such un-American law.

One thing is sure; we will have another chance in November 2012. However, unless all of us - the young, the African-Americans, the Latinos, the retired Americans, the liberals and the majority of American women - devote our time, tell our friends to vote and do it ourselves, like we all did in 2008, the Democrats will have no chance to capture the absolute ‘60 majority’ in the Senate and to regain control of the House. Even with all our efforts, it may be almost impossible in the Senate since only 10 Republican-held seats are in play while there are 23 contested Democratic ones. On top of that, many of 10 GOP seats are in the GOP stronghold in the South. That near impossibility is no excuse for apathy. On the contrary, it means that we must fight even harder. Above anything else, we must make sure we don’t lose any of our precious 53 seats. In case you consider skipping the 2012 elections like so many Democrats did in the last mid-term elections, please be aware that the GOP is only 4 seats away from the dreadful possibility of taking over control of the Senate. That would spell the end of protection from Big Banks and Big Business abuses.

Without the super 60 majority, Obama’s 2nd term could be a repeat of the 1st one with a continuation of water downed measures but nothing as ghastly as a GOP Senate majority. We might have to witness another abject display of total ‘dysfunctionality’ in Washington unless we tell the President, in no uncertain terms, that we are behind him all the way but that we want him to avoid compromises and confront the GOP head on. At least if we give the Democrats control of the House, his chances of enhancing meaningful measures will be much improved. Moreover, if we capture the House back, Obama will be able to confront the GOP head on during his 2nd term. With the House back in the Democratic side, the ‘Blue Dawg’ Democrats will finally get the picture that the public has had enough of the evangelical/conservative shenanigans!

By standing up to the Republicans and continuing to involve the American people, the President will not have to water down so many needed legislations, regardless of the special interest lobbyists. In addition, not having to worry about another term should give him a big advantage and make it easier to be more aggressive.

Due to our crazy unending pre-primary, primary and actual post-convention presidential campaign considerations, our already snail-paced Congress practically has crawled to a complete stop. This 60 super majority deal is just one more example of the undemocratic rules that politicians have imposed on our democracy!

If Obama still expects to get any cooperation from the Republicans, nothing much will happen. Without the 60 super-majority in the Senate and any majority at all in the House, it could mean constant gridlock and another 4 years of minimal achievements. One more reason why we, the people, must make it clear to the GOP that we are no longer buying their lies. To do that, in November 2012 we must concentrate our efforts to give control of the House to the Democrats.

The results must make it clear to the obstructing Republicans that the American people no longer buy their BS.

If we rush to the polls and vote, it will be easier to regain control of the House because all seats are up for grab while, in the Senate, it may be almost impossible to gain anything in the Bible belt. Therefore our efforts in the Senate must be retain what we have and gain as many new seats as possible, for instance one in Maine where the long-standing moderate Republican Senator decided not to run because she could no longer accept the ultra-conservative control that the Tea-Party has gained over her Party.

IT’S UP TO ALL OF US TO MAKE SURE THAT OBAMA CAN WORK FOR US.

Did Obama compromise too much; should he have been more confrontational with the GOP? I would tend to answer yes! President Obama was too much of an idealist and he apparently believed that the GOP members would put what is good for the country ahead of what is good for Big Business. I hope that he now realizes that the GOP only cares for the 1%, the Big Corporations, Big Oil and Wall Street and does not care at all for us, the 99% little insignificant pawns! I also hope that the millions of gullible Americans who continue to vote against their own interests will finally open their eyes and realize that the GOP is completely obedient to Big Business. The Republicans have proven their total allegiance to Wall Street and Big Business quite openly; trying hard to block any small benefit for the unemployed while clamoring for billions of tax cuts for their super rich sponsors! How can anyone not see that? It happened every single day in Congress. To its credit, it must be said that the GOP didn’t even attempt to hide its dirty pro-rich agenda!

In spite of Obama’s oft expressed desire to reach some of the GOP legislators, he had to face the continuous obstructions of the other side of the aisle.

It has actually been so obvious that millions of Americans have decided to call the GOP the ‘Party of NO’. I definitely do not agree with that incomplete description of the Republicans. It should really be called ‘The Party of NO for the 99% and YES for the 1%’. The Republican propaganda stops at nothing to confuse the naive public. A typical example is their lies about Obama’s new job package of 447 billion dollars to repair America’s crumbling infrastructure and create hundreds of thousands of sorely needed jobs. The package included a very small tax increase on incomes over 1 million. It was perfectly clear to everybody that the extra small tax would only apply to the part that is over 1 million but the conservative talk show hosts, ‘Flush’ Limbaugh et al, immediately assailed it as a new job killing tax on incomes over 1 million. In true conservative radio talk hosts fashion, they attempted to give the impression to Americans that Obama was asking to increase tax on the full earnings, not just on the part above the 1ST million. To continue their habit of deceiving the public, they conveniently falsify their report as they always do! Why should they bother to tell the truth since their partisan audience buys everything the guys say without bothering to check whether there is any truth to it? The shrewdly exploited GOP job killing words have done wonder for the maneuvering commentators.

Here is exactly what Obama proposed; take someone with a $1,050,000.00 taxable income. He/she would pay the extra 3.5% tax on the $ 50,000, 00 not on the $1,050,000.00. It would result in $1,750 additional tax. Not much but altogether those additional 3.5% would have helped to pay a good part of the job package; in other words help to put thousands of unemployed back to work on projects needed to salvage our dilapidated infrastructure. I doubt that small extra tax would affect the extremely high standard of living of those privileged few. As we all should know, including the gullible ones, helping all Americans has never been a part of the Republican agenda! So I ask the same question again; since the naive ones really know that, why do they keep voting for the GOP? The only possible explanation is that they must be genuine masochists who relish suffering?

Personally, instead of criticizing the President for not doing enough, I prefer to congratulate him for having been able to do as much as he did in spite of the determined obstructions of the Republicans. It really is a miracle that Obama was able to accomplish so much before the mid-term elections when there were only 59 Democrat Senators, just enough to be one short of the magical 60 super majority. That little extra one would have made a huge difference. Bear in mind that without a minimum of 60 Senators, the Democrats do not have much of a fighting chance to do anything. All it takes is one single GOP Senator to filibuster and stop the voting on any Democratic proposal. The Republicans have mastered the art to filibuster anything their rich sponsors instruct them to stop and the number of times they did it to stop Obama’s plans beats all pre-existing records! It does make a total mockery of our democracy but the Republican lawmakers love it!

As far as we, the supposedly omnipotent people, are concerned, our opinion does not appear to mean anything, at least not until the next electoral campaign approaches!

To avoid the GOP-created gridlocks that marred his 1st term, we, his friends must do all we can to gain as many Senators as we can and, especially, give him a majority in the House for his 2nd term, getting rid of ‘baby tears’ John Boehner.

In 2010, following the mid-term elections, after what Obama himself called a shellacking, the number of Democratic Senators decreased from 59 to 53.

That was the tragic result of the millions of Americans who swallowed the glaring GOP lies combined with the millions of Democrats who did not bother to vote. Remember the Republicans promises that, if given the chance by the American public, they would make producing jobs their number one priority. Yes, the GOP politicians, supported by their fanatic evangelical cronies, claimed that their only objective would be ‘jobs, jobs, jobs!’ As usual the gullible public believed the liars which, sadly for America, resulted in a 2010 GOP resounding electoral mid- term victory. I wonder how all those brainwashed voters feel now, after the GOP demonstrated one more time that its only allegiance is to Wall Street, not Main Street.

We were actually very fortunate that the Tea Party nuts had forced the GOP to nominate 2 of their extremists for the Senate races in Maryland and Nevada. These 2 lunatics proved too crazy even for many staunch Republicans although it was still a very close race in Nevada. With more moderate candidates, the GOP could probably have won Nevada. In Maryland, Christine O’Connell proved so completely ‘out-of-touch’ with reality that she even scared a lot of Republicans. Actually, most of her statements were so goofy that it is hard to believe that anyone could have voted for her. She lost by a huge margin but one can wonder how so many Republicans disregarded her strangeness and even considered sending her to Washington. Crazy or not, a large number of evangelical/conservatives did vote for that dangerous psychopath. It is frightening to imagine that she and a few other Tea Partiers like her could ever become members of our Senate. I guess that we should actually thank the Tea Party for having let their lunacy hurt the GOP.

A substantial part of the Republican campaign to belittle our President has been to claim that he has failed to do anything to help the economy and is responsible for the stubborn unemployment rate. Actually the unemployment rate had topped 10.4% shortly after Obama became President and, as of March 2012, is down to 8.3% and the number of newly created jobs has been steadily increasing for several months. What an improvement over the monthly 750,000 loss when Obama took over 3 years ago; a fact that is, of course, constantly disregarded by Romney, Santorum and Gingrich who continue their blasphemes that Obama has failed the American people!

Considering the stubborn worldwide economic crisis, I consider the job improvement picture quite an achievement already, even though, as Obama keeps asserting, much more is needed. Never mentioned by the GOP, this was attained while reducing government jobs by 300,000, another fact that the GOP chose to ignore because it would defeat their accusations that Obama is increasing the hated Big Government.

The GOP propaganda masters keep repeating that "Obama has been in charge for 3 years and can no longer blame the previous administration. It’s about time that he accepts responsibility for the mess we’re in". The truth is that things are enormously better than they would be if Obama had not acted as soon as he took over to reverse the Bush hemorrhage. Without his strong actions in 2009, the Bush recession would almost certainly have sunk our country and the rest of the industrialized world into a full blown 1929-like depression. We were that close to the edge of the precipice and Obama rapid and drastic stimulus measures saved our country from falling down into the abyss! Of course, do not expect any GOP member to recognize it. It would require being honest and such an idea is definitely totally anathema to the Republican principles.

When Obama courageously decided to authorize huge loans to save GM and Chrysler from going under, he was subjected to daily insults by the GOP. Republicans clamored that it was not the American free enterprise way. They kept shouting Let them go bankrupt and the free enterprise system will fix the problem. Most GOP members voted against the bail-out of GM and Chrysler and, even to this day, while the 2 giants successfully avoided bankruptcy and got back on their feet, the blasphemers continue to call it a costly failure. Some GOP maniacs are even boasting that they tried to defend free enterprise by voting against another encroachment by Big Government. It is repugnant to hear Mitt Romney, the great impostor, repeat that it was un-American for the government to rescue the 2 auto giants. He pretends that we should have let the ‘private enterprise’ system follow its course, meaning letting both go into bankruptcy! Coming from a native of Michigan and the son of the former CEO of the defunct American Motors Corporation, it makes it even more repulsive. He would have nonchalantly dismissed the unemployment ordeals of the additional hundreds of thousands of workers. Of course laying off thousands of workers is nothing new to him. He did it repeatedly when he was buying companies while working with Bain Financial, buying firms, firing personnel to show a better P & L and then selling at a huge profit. He claims he was a job creator. Actually job cremator characterizes him much better.

The truth is that the loans to GM and Chrysler- not give away as the GOP screams - have been extremely successful, way beyond the hopes of the most optimistic analysts. Large parts of the loans have already been repaid, ahead of time. So far it looks that both Corporations